Four Click Fraud Profiles

Peter Prestipino

Posted on 1.11.2009

Anchor Intelligence released a report entitled "Anatomy of a Fraudster" which describes four profiles of click fraud perpetrators. The traffic quality solution provider studied traffic patterns across its clients base and gathered intelligence on four of the most prevalent fraudulent behavioral profiles, ranging in levels of sophistication. The profiles are summarized as follows:

Click fraud farmers – members of click farms, which are outsourced by
an organization and paid to generate clicks on behalf of a third party.

Pyramid schemers – individuals who are caught up in illegal schemes, in
which they are paid to click on ads, visit websites and recruit
other users.

Money launderers – fraudsters who recruit consumers to use their
personal information to register various websites with ad networks with
intent to generate false clicks on ads hosted by their websites.

“The sophistication levels of these fraudster profiles vary significantly. Advertisers can generally minimize the less sophisticated fraudsters by following the advice of bloggers and industry thought leaders. Unfortunately, more sophisticated forms of fraud, such as the Money Launderers and Kit Sophisticates, are becoming increasingly commonplace. These guys are generally much more difficult to detect and often require the help of a third party,” said Ken Miller, CEO of Anchor Intelligence.

The “Anatomy of a Fraudster” report is available as a free download to ad networks and members of the online advertising industry